Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011

83 Proceedings etc

(1) An audit committee is to appoint the person who is to chair the committee (who may be a member of the authority or a lay member but who must not be a member of an executive group).

(2) If there are no opposition groups, the person who is to chair the audit committee may be a member of an executive group but must not be a member of the local authority’s executive.

(3) All members of an audit committee may vote on any question that falls to be decided by the committee.

(4) An audit committee of a local authority—

(a) may require members and officers of the authority to attend before it to answer questions, and

(b) may invite other persons to attend meetings of the committee.

(5) It is the duty of any member or officer of a local authority to comply with any requirement imposed under subsection (4)(a).

(6) A person is not obliged by subsection (5) to answer any question which the person would be entitled to refuse to answer in, or for the purposes of, proceedings in a court in England and Wales.

(7) An audit committee is to be treated as a committee of a principal council for the purposes of Part 5A of the Local Government Act 1972 (access to meetings and documents of certain authorities, committees and sub-committees).

(8) For the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the expressions “executive group” and “opposition group” have the same meaning as in section 75.